Mary Bousted: The Benefits of Art and Creativity for Educators Wellbeing, and Students Development

On the 28th May schools are being encouraged to fill their social media channels with the arts; drawing, painting, music, dance, poetry, and drama. It was conceived by 9 education unions as a “badly needed antidote to the misery and disruption of Covid-19". Using the hashtag #EduArtsFest we can all enjoy the vibrant and life affirming energy that this youthful outpouring of creativity will provide. Find out more about it here.

Art and creativity are not just for our students. It’s for us, and it’s for everyone. Making art and being creative is a rejuvenating activity that we all need right now. We have made a new resource 'Discovering Creativity for Educators' to help educators take time out and rejuvenate themselves, and get ideas for the classroom too. Its free for educators, and you can find it here:

Online Resource: Discovering Creativity for Educators

Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, talked to us about the benefits of art and creativity for the wellbeing of teachers as well as the development of young people.

SSF: Why is arts and creativity important in education?

Mary: I think that the arts are a primary act of mind. We know that there are ancient rock paintings being discovered which are much older than previously thought. Storytelling is a primary act of mind. We tell our life in stories. When we talk about our day, we tell a story. When we're remembering things, we tell a story. Stories are a way of making sense of the world. The arts are a way of making sense of the world. It's about expressing feelings and emotions and also reacting to the world.

As such it’s what defines our humanity our creativity defines us as human. We are the only animals which are creative in this way. That's why if education is to engage and develop the potential of the human being, it has to engage fundamentally and centrally with creativity and with the arts, in all their forms. If we don't do that, then we're not focusing on what is educating children and young people in the essence of what is human.

SSF: What do young people miss out on if they don’t have the opportunity to engage with arts and creativity in education.

Mary: If there wasn't an arts education in school and a creative education, then they miss out on the ability to develop all sorts of skills. Developing their imagination, developing ways to express how they’re feeling, the ability to move well, and speak well, translate what they are feeling or what they are experiencing into something really creative. Whether through art or through music or through drama.

If we want a broad and balanced curriculum something which will inspire and engage children and young people then absolutely the arts and creativity needs to be at the centre of that.

For myself when I was at school, I actually didn't enjoy school much. I always find people who enjoyed school to be rather odd, and I didn't enjoy school like a lot of people who then became teachers. One of my motivations for becoming a teacher was not to do to my pupils what was done to me. For me drama and music were the things which kept me at school. I was in the choir, that was hugely important, and I was in every play. My triumph was playing Oberon in ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’ at a girls school. I loved everything about the plays. I love the rehearsals, I love the friendships you made when you were rehearsing, I love the thrill of the performance. For me that was another world. The magic of that other world was so important, and I know that gave me more confidence, it gave me the confidence to speak in public, it was such an important part of my school life. It was the only bit of my school life that I really enjoyed, apart from the English lessons.

SSF: Can art and creativity be brought into all areas of the curriculum?

Mary: I think bringing art and creativity into every topic is really important, but unfortunately, I don't think it happens too much now. I think the pressure of the accountability framework means that children spend a lot of their time in school sitting down listening, and then writing. I think that things are really being missed, particularly oracy and the use of talk to learn, and also creativity. It’s becoming more and more difficult to make those cross curricular links to insert creativity into other subjects. I think that's becoming really hard.

I think that's also part to do with the separation of subjects in a very rigid way. Lots of schools are now looking at the curriculum and the arts and creativity are really in danger. Because in the EBacc¹ you just have one creative subject. We've seen already a decline in the number of children taking creative subjects at GCSE and funding cuts provide even bigger threats to that.

SSF: Is there a benefit for educators to make art and creative activities for themselves?

Mary: I think if teachers are creative themselves it gives them far greater confidence to introduce creativity with their pupils, and into their curriculum, and into their work, because it gives them something concrete to draw on. Actually, if you've experienced yourself, the immense pleasure of creativity, then that gives you confidence as well to think this is important, this is necessary, I know this for myself and I want it for my pupils.

I think it would be fantastic for more educators, more teachers, to be able to live creative lives. But I also think it would be fantastic for teachers to spend more time with their family and have some leisure time. With working hours approaching 50 hours a week that's really hard. I think the problem for us as a society is that we exhaust our teachers. Indeed, I'm writing a book about it so it's on my mind a lot at the moment. But if we could free up teachers’ time, and they could engage in creative activities, it would be so good for their own physical well-being, their mental well-being, and their mental health. It would be something that would enrich their lives and give something back to them, because at the moment teachers’ energy is just sapped through intense pressure and excessive work.

SSF: What would you say about our new resource ‘Discovering Creativity for Educators’?

Mary: Listen I know you're exhausted if you're a teacher. I know that you've got far too much work to do. But this is a fantastic resource, you can dip into it and spend 3 minutes getting fantastic ideas, about creative writing, about art, about music, about drama, about how to use creativity. The other thing is that it’s ideas from around the world, so if you're concerned about decolonizing your curriculum, if you're concerned about introducing themes and issues from around the world which reflects the cultural heritage of the pupils that you teach, or want to widen your pupils’ cultural heritage, then use this resource it's really fantastic.

We are really thrilled to be able to offer this resource, we are adding to it all the time, so have a look and keep popping back to see what more has been added. We’d like to thank all the contributors and also Mary Bousted for taking the time to speak with us about the importance of art and creativity in education.

We hope that many of you are able to join with others schools in filling social media with art and creativity with the young people that you work with on the 28^th May, and remember to use the hashtag #EduArtsFest so that we can all appreciate it.

¹ The English Baccalaureate (EBacc) is an accountability measure in England. It measures the proportion of children who secure a grade 5 or above in English, Maths, Science, a humanity and language GCSE. Arts subjects are not included.

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Steve Sinnott • May 25, 2021

Capacity development as part of education

By BY JOSEPHINE DODDS • 06 May, 2024

Education has been identified as a key aspect to achieve societal development. This has been highlighted with the 2015 sustainable development goals, with goal 4 being to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Education has also shifted to being a means to transmit peace and global tolerance through increasing the understanding of other cultures. This has tied in with the rise of capacity development initiatives in development practice that seek to empower and enable individuals and communities to build upon their preexisting capacities. It is a key strategy to ensure educational development by international organisations, governments, and communities. The main principles of capacity development are participation, locally driven agenda, ongoing learning, long term investment and building upon local capacities. By integrating these principles into educational development, it allows for school communities to become involved in peace building activities. Through following a locally driven agenda schools can become centres for fostering peace and understanding and address local issues that may prevent children from attending or staying in school. This is what the UNESCO Associated Schools network aims to achieve by involving schools and educational institutes at a global level, creating networks of educators and students that share information, knowledge and spread UNESCOs value of peace. It aims to join schools through four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together to create sustainable learning and teaching environments that involve communities in conservation activities, petitions and cultural events. Schools undertake social and educational projects that allow students to get involved with supporting developmental and humanitarian organisations, through fundraising and field trips. Recently The Steve Sinnott Foundation organised an international trip to Japan for the 70th Anniversary of UNESCO ASPnet for the Arts and Culture for peace exchange, bringing together students from The Gambia, Oman, Singapore, Korea and Coventry. By expanding education to include individuals and communities’ local agendas and addressing international issues, education can provide a platform for ongoing learning and development. It allows for students to develop their ability to think critically and connect with others meaning they can both learn and understand issues that might not be highlighted otherwise. By allowing schools, students, and communities to connect and direct their own development and focusing on developing existing capacities, the meaning and aim of education shifts from traditional roles to being focused upon understanding and peace.

Women and girls education GUPT perspective

By BY DALILA EL BARHMI • 29 Apr, 2024

Women’s and Girls’ Full Participation in Society: “Are Palestinian women reaping the benefits of education in similar ways to the rest of the world?” Palestinian women continue to be some of the most educated women in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. While women’s academic participation is indeed measurable, they are not reaping the benefits of education. Palestinian women, especially educated Palestinian women, are overlooked, and under-represented in Palestinian society. Current indicators reveal that access to education has not significantly improved women’s status in Palestinian society. It is therefore imperative to benefit from Palestinian women’s education and skills in society not only as a social right, but as a development necessity. The percentage of educated women in Palestine is remarkable and one of the highest around the world with a 99.6% in 2020 for completion in primary and upper secondary. While Palestinian women have always been visible in the national struggle, they have limited leadership and decision making-opportunities. Their participation in civil society and the formal government has been restricted. In decision making positions, women comprise only 8.3% of all ministers, 0% of ministerial representatives, and 6% of assistants to the ministerial representatives. Within all ministries women comprise 30% of staff. In the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, women are the majority, comprising 68.1%. Education unions leading by example: Education unions have viewed the education of future generations, with a focus on girls, as a form of protest, resistance to the country and Arab region’s ongoing-conflict, displacement, and upheaval. Accordingly, women and girls’ education has thrived in recent years. COVID 19 crisis a catalyst for transforming education unions: Education unions voiced that an appropriate response to COVID -19 in the education sector should consider the rights and best interests of students, teachers and education support personnel and involve education unions in developing the containment and recovery measures. This response accelerated the transformation process of the largest union in Palestine, the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT). They want to have a truly representative union and integrate women educators in the union decision making structures. Despite the pandemic, GUPT continued to engage in social dialogue with the government, continued to fight for decent working conditions and welfare for teachers and education personnel and engage in a process of trade union transformation reflecting the realities of the 21st century. The union stepped up during the rapid shift to distance learning, they have developed online programmes, trained teachers on distance learning and supported students to decrease inequality among learners. The union also urged that the transformation should also challenge discrimination and increase women’s involvement in education, in trade unions and in society. This process was a driver to enhance women’s leadership within the union’s structures. From words to action: Mechanisms put in place to enhance women educators’ participation. With the support of international sister organisations, GUPT developed their own strategy to promote women’s participation and leadership within their union and in education. They developed a strategy, and we identified the following objectives: Increase the number of women in key union leadership and decision-making bodies at the regional and national level, through capacity development training on leadership for women. They have also introduced policies such as gender quotas and allocated budgets for their gender equity programmes. Activate the role of their Women’s Committee and prioritise the recruitment of young female teachers. The union is also working to identify and address the barriers to women’s participation in union leadership and decision making. In education the union is working with the Ministry of Education to review school books so that gender discrimination is not inherently written into the curriculum. GUPT is also organising sensitization training for educators so that discriminatory stereotypes are not perpetuated in the classroom. Finally, for the GUPT it is important to secure the right to education for all Palestinian students, especially girls. Teaching and learning must occur in quality, safe environments. Every effort must be made to eradicate the different types of violence that occur all too frequently in and around educational settings.

Support the Women in our Public Schools on the way to Diversifying Teaching

By BY MARY CATHRYN RICKER • 22 Apr, 2024

Early in my work as the president of my local teacher’s union I was invited to a community leader meeting about reforming the teaching profession. Amidst the discussion of harsher teacher evaluations, raising standards for teaching, creating easier entry into the profession, merit pay for “good” teachers, and more, I brought up the fact that working conditions and salaries hadn’t meaningfully changed since the 1960s. “We’re in favor of paying math and science teachers more so they can be compensated closer to what they’d get in the private sector,” a business community representative replied, offering an idea that was not new to me. Full disclosure: my dad was a career math teacher from that era of math and science majors who answered their government’s call to become math and science teachers who would boost the United States of America’s bench in the space race. I could easily picture how a larger salary could have changed our family’s budget. Teachers’ unions like mine (and my dad’s) addressed pay disparities based on gender that were common a generation earlier by fighting for a salary schedule focused on experience and education. So, I offered back, “If we want to differentiate pay related to the most important job in education, then we should seriously consider paying kindergarten and first grade teachers more than anyone because they teach students to read, which is the rocket science of education,” alluding to an influential issue of AFT’s American Educator magazine from 1999. “Well, I’m sure those teachers are fine but I have volunteered in first grade classrooms and their work doesn’t compare to math and science teachers.” Oh. Interesting. We clearly weren’t going to see eye to eye in our differentiated pay conversation. More so, there are decades long gender stereotypes lurking behind that conversation. In addition to the history of gender based pay inequities, elementary school teachers are assumed to be female while more secondary teachers are male. There has long been a disconnect between the importance communities, elected officials, and countries have placed on education. From local funding efforts to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education, support for education is nearly universal in most communities. That support for education doesn’t always translate to support for educators and, with a majority of educators worldwide being female, that sets a dangerous precedent. Our teachers deserve professional working conditions because teaching and learning begins with their expertise. Additionally, a teacher’s working conditions are a student’s learning conditions and so administrators, public officials, or policymakers mistreating, undermining, or disrespecting teachers sends a message to students that teachers do not deserve respect, fair treatment, or professionalization. In addition to a stubborn lack of recognition of teachers as professionals, a vicious cycle exists around salary. Teachers have historically low wages because it is feminized and because it is feminized teacher’s wages are suppressed. The evidence that belonging to a union, with the ability to negotiate collectively, improves teacher compensation is key in disrupting this vicious cycle. Teaching has been a feminized profession for over a century and, despite efforts to diversify the profession, remains a feminized profession. In fact, the OECD reports that the gender gap increased from 2005 to 2019. In order for our students to have the most representative learning conditions, we need the most representative teachers so we must continue to diversify teaching to represent everyone in our communities, including by gender. Efforts like Black Men Teach, active in my home state of Minnesota, can make a meaningful difference. I would posit treating the current majority female teaching population as professionals—with professional wages, recognizing their expertise in teaching and learning rather than infantilizing them, respecting their commitment to education rather than exploiting it—would both model for students the way to treat women (and thereby model for female students how they can expect to be treated in any profession) and create the conditions for everyone to see teaching as a profession worth pursuing.